DALLAS – In the three games the Nuggets played in Dallas this season prior to Monday night, the team’s management has always been in the crowd but had never seen a scene quite like the one in Game 5.

By its end, security was permanently perched by Kenyon Martin’s mother, who had beer poured on her during the game. Martin himself, felt compelled to yell into the crowd in defense of his mom during a break in the second quarter. Carmelo Anthony’s fiance, La La Vazquez, was fed up to the point where she retaliated with words and by throwing an object before leaving the game altogether in the fourth quarter. Nuggets assistant coach Jamahl Mosley left the bench early in the night to make certain Martin’s mother was alright. Obscenities were shouted nearly all night at Martin’s girlfriend, Trina. And Nuggets director of team security, Bobby Simmons, scurried back and forth through it all.

Rex Chapman, Nuggets vice president of player personnel, was among the Nuggets’ brass who were all severely turned off by if all.

“Short of a game I saw in Belgrade a couple of years ago where they were throwing chairs and setting off flares, it was about as dangerous a venue I’ve been in,” Chapman said. “It’s not fair to our players who have to sit there and worry about their families, friends, girlfriends and wives being, for lack of a better term, assaulted, verbally. It was really bad in there.”

Chapman did say arena security did what it could to diffuse the situation, but the crowd “was whipped into a frenzy for some reason. It was almost like it was open season on Kenyon’s mom, and Melo’s wife and Kenyon’s girlfriend. It was bad.”

Martin was booed loudly as he and Trina walked down a hallway in the American Airways Center after the game. Martin showed the crowd, which was in an arena bar, a middle finger.

Nuggets coach George Karl spoke out against the crowd’s behavior.

“I probably would use an uglier word than hostile,” said Karl of the scene. “I don’t think it was very classy.”

It was a sad end to a weird day that started out with Martin vowing to confront Mark Cuban about inflammatory comments the Mavericks owner made to his mom after Game 3. Anthony, in his postgame comments, called for Cuban to apologize. Mavericks president Terdema Ussery, apologized to Martin’s mother and other Nuggets families afterward for their problems with the crowd.

Karl, however, didn’t want Martin to let the situation get to him.

“I’ve gone through problems with Kenyon,” Karl said. “Kenyon’s a man. He doesn’t want to discuss his problems with (the media). He wants to discuss his problem with Mark. I would prefer he probably do it in the summertime; that would probably be best served for both of them. Let the emotion go away and then go have dinner.”

Cuban, this morning, took Karl’s advice. On his blog, blogmaverick.com, Cuban apologized to Martin and his mother, Lydia Moore and said he would be willing to take Martin and his family to dinner in the summer.

“It doesnt matter why I said it,” Cuban wrote. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Now, the reality is that this has gotten out of hand. … So at this point I would like to apologize to you and your mom KMart for my comment. I should have not said anything and I was wrong. Hopefully you will accept the apology and we can move on.

“When the series comes back to Dallas, your family, and the family of other Nuggets players are welcome to stay in my suite, with my family. Its amazing how tempers mellow when real people talk to each other and realize that its still just a game. If that isn’t acceptable, I’m happy to provide a suite, free of charge to them as well and place whatever security is needed to make them feel comfortable.”

Cuban also addressed the crowd issue in his blog, saying that “We tried to have enough additional security for them tonight as well, but I know your family and friends didn’t feel as comfortable as they should. I apologize for that as well. This arena is my responsibility, we could and should do a better job.”